Tab Order -- not maintaining order

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
June 25, 2021
3 replies
3603 views

I create detailed medical forms for my company, which require frequent updates. I name all form fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons and set the tab order. After making updates to a form, however, the tab order always re-shuffles. In particular, any radio buttons (and sometimes checkboxes and signature fields) drop to the bottom of the tab order list. Fixing the tab order after each form revision is a tediousness time suck.

Does anyone have a suggestion / plug-in to avoid this going forward? I appreciate the help!

How to

Correct answer Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

If I were to setup the form within Acrobat, wouldn't I need to redo that work (adding form fields and/or specifying tab order) after each time I generate an updated PDF from InDesign?
By @Meredith0404

That's correct, @Meredith0404. You'd have to rebuild the form parts each time you edited the PDF Form file. There are some tricks to make it a tad easier, but it's still a lousy, time-consuming workflow.

In your InDesign layout, are you controlling your reading orders? If so, which tools and techniques are you using to do that?

Threaded text threads for the visible skeleton portion of the form
Anchoring the form fields into the threaded text frames
Controlling the stacking order in the layers panel (bottom up: bottommost item is read first).

S

SLB_2484

New Participant

DE-selecting "Use Structure for Tab Order" in the PDF Export dialog box fixes the random tab jumping problem!

barbara_a7746676

Adobe Expert

Once you complete the form in InDesign, it would be easier to set the tab order in Acrobat. Acrobat has much more robust forms features than InDesign has.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Brainiac

Once you complete the form in InDesign, it would be easier to set the tab order in Acrobat. Acrobat has much more robust forms features than InDesign has.
By @barbara_a7746676

Nah. Disagree 100% with that!

I'm a professional forms designer and teach forms classes in all sorts of programs. I'm also an InDesign expert and designer, as well as an accessibililty expert.

Right now, InDesign has the easiest and most succefful form design tools.

But, to each his/her own tools! So use what you have and know.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Brainiac

Thank you for weighing in Bevi. Given your heavy experience with forms via InDesign, have you experienced the same issue I've described? Any suggestions for a rememdy to form fields reshuffling?

@Meredith0404 wrote above: I create detailed medical forms for my company, which require frequent updates. I name all form fields, checkboxes, and radio buttons and set the tab order. After making updates to a form, however, the tab order always re-shuffles.

Yes. It has to do with how the InDesign form was created. Every time you export, you're back to what InDesign has as the various reading orders (RO) for the PDF.

Keep in mind that a PDF has 4 ROs:

Tag RO,
TAB RO(or keyboard input is a better description),
architectural/construction RO (what you see in the Order panel...why does this one RO get named "THE Order" is beyond me),
and the form field RO.

The more you control in InDesign, the better. (See previous post) Stacking order in the Layers panel is a big factor.

One more item that controls the RO is the Articles Panel. It's not required to control any of the ROs, but it can affect the tag and architectural ROs. So try using the Aticles Panel at the end of your workflow, just before exporting the PDF.

Also, make sure you're selecting the option to use the Tag tree for the TAB RO: it's a checkbox in InDesign's export dialogue.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |